Tuesday, 13 September 2016

Murder On The Ballarat Train Book Review

When Phryne Fisher arranges to go to Ballarat for a week, she eschews the excitement of her Hispano-Suiza for the sedate safety of the train. But as the passengers sleep, they are all overcome by chloroform poisoning.In the morning Phryne is left to piece together all the clues: a young girl suffering from amnesia, the body of an old woman missing her emerald rings and rumours of white slavery and black magic... the last thing Phryne was expecting of this train journey was that she will have to use her trusty Beretta .32 to save lives!

Murder On The Ballarat Trainby Kerry Greenwood

Review

I discovered Miss Fisher in the early days of 2016 and have been hooked since. There's only so many times you can watch the same programmes on Netflix so after hopping around from list to list I accidentally stumbled across the magnificent Phryne Fisher.

After watching all the available episodes on the Netflix network I pondered where I could get my next fix from. That's when I made the astonishing discovery that Kerry Greenwood published the stories I'd seen in my living room. Enduring an entire month of searching, the Waterstones store in Bluewater finally offered me the Murder On The Ballarat Train. Before jumping in to my review I feel I should point out that someone very naughty didn't print a price on the back of the book and after some research I've made the discovery that I was over charged! £8.99 for a book which measures just over 1 cm in depth is a complete rip off!

So what's the book about? Phryne ( pronounced Franee ) decides to take a trip with her companion Dot to Ballarat for a week. However, on the train an entire carriage is put in danger when chloroform is used to extract one of the passengers. Discovering that an old lady has been taken from the train Miss Fisher makes it her business to find the missing passenger and subsequently solve her murder. While making other shocking discoveries along the way, Phryne falls into the arms of a charming young rower and ends up with two young girls and a kitten in tow.

Miss Fisher as a whole is an enticing collection of murder mysteries set in Australia. Flying around the Oz roads in her Hispano-Suiz motor Phryne mocks the stereotype of a woman standing behind a man and makes a name for herself as a private detective. Throughout the plot of Murder On The Ballarat Train she is endlessly energetic and enlightens any page she touches in the book.

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Having watched the televised version of this story first I did note several differences in the story however I'm pleased to say that the outcome was the same and my favourite character, Detective Inspector Jack Robinson, does make an appearance. All the characters are well depicted and really help to bring the story out of the pages.

Although in places the story makes some unexplained leaps there are some great scenes included which really show how imaginative Kerry Greenwood is and why Miss Fisher is such a popular option for murder mystery lovers.